Sheebs

Open season, nine times over
Bob Von Sternberg, Star Tribune
March 8, 2005 CATS0308



Goodbye, Kitty?

If a firefighter from La Crosse gets his way, stray cats in Wisconsin could legally be blown from here to feline eternity. Not surprisingly, the proposal to allow the shooting of free-roaming cats has horrified cat lovers nationwide.

"This really crosses the line in human and cat relations," said Ted O'Donnell, owner of a pet supply store in Madison. He has set up a website called dontshootthecat.com. "I remember when firefighters used to rescue cats -- not shoot them."

This particular firefighter, 48-year-old Mark Smith, doesn't quite see what all the fuss is about.

"I get up in the morning and if there's new snow, there's cat tracks under my bird feeder," Smith told the Associated Press "I look at them as an invasive species, plain and simple."

Trophy animal? Using that logic, he has asked Wisconsin officials to designate free-roaming domesticated cats as members of an "unprotected species" that could be shot on sight by anyone holding a small-game license.

Smith's proposal will be placed before the public April 11 at the Wisconsin Conservation Congress' annual spring hearings in each of the state's 72 counties.

The congress serves as an advisory group to that state's Department of Natural Resources.

"We're just going to have to pass on the citizens' recommendation to the [DNR], and they'd have to take it to the Legislature to get the law changed," said Steve Oestreicher, chairman of the Conservation Congress, who described his reaction to the proposal as "kind of a toss-up. People aren't aware of how many songbirds common house cats kill every year. They're surprised at what that critter is capable of."

But Oestreicher added: "There's no need for people to scream bloody murder that we're going to let people start shooting cats, because that's not going to happen."

Making a case

Scientific rationale for the plugging proposal is contained in a 1996 paper published by University of Wisconsin ecology Prof. Stanley Temple.

He calculated that an estimated 1.4 million free-ranging cats in Wisconsin's rural areas were responsible for the deaths of anywhere from 7.8 million to 219 million birds every year.

"It's obviously a very controversial proposal," Temple said. "I think there really is a basis for having a debate about it."

O'Donnell said the study was scientifically flawed and ignores alternatives, such as trapping and euthanizing such cats. Even better would be to adopt a policy of trapping, neutering and returning them to the wild, according to Alley Cat Allies, a nationwide cat-advocacy group.

"The idea of open season on cats, of going out and shooting them is just inhumane," said Alley Cat spokeswoman Jessica Frohman. "And it's not going to work because as soon as you get rid of one, you've opened a food source for more cats. You'll never get rid of them that way."

Frohman's organization has never encountered such a plan in any other state. A Minnesota Department of Natural Resources spokesman said no one in the state has ever floated such an idea.

As an alternative to shooting the state's cats, the Minnesota DNR and several birding organizations have sponsored a campaign called "Cats Indoors! Minnesota Project," which tries to educate cat owners to keep their pets indoors where they can't stalk and kill birds.

"A lot of people don't realize the toll cats can take on wildlife," said campaign spokeswoman Andrea Lee Lambrecht. "But having a shooting match with the neighborhood cats would be a real unfortunate outcome. We don't villainize cats in this country."

In fact, Americans are so enamored of their cats that they have made felines the most popular pet species in the nation, which could help explain the blistering opposition to the idea of shooting cats. In addition to the 77.6 million cats owned in the United States, the estimate for the number of feral cats -- cats that were domesticated but are living outdoors -- is in the tens of millions.

"I've gotten hundreds of e-mails from all over the country and Canada," O'Donnell said. "This is a ridiculous idea."

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Seems pretty sick to me

alli balli

!!! I love cats! That's awful. How would they know whether they're shooting an actual "wild" domestic cat or someone's pet that got loose, anyway?

*Ledi*

I love cats so this makes me sick.

mh67511

My family has a cat that lives outside. I think if cats were supposed to live indoors the good Lord would have given them hands to build one with. Well, my dad relented and allows it to live in the garage in the winter.

"George" has actually got a rabbit, mice, and birds, but he wont eat them! I think he used to be an indoor cat but he isn't allowed inside. My sisters kept him as a "barn" cat and it's nice that he's gotten a few mice, but I wish he eat them so that the mice might actually go away.

Now sometimes other stray cats come into the yard (not sure where they come from since we are in the country) and they try and eat George's food, but my sister screams at them to go away. And one of them would stand out front and make this God-awful noise that sounded like a ghost. THAT one I wouldn't have minded someone takin' out.

sum1

How about open season on cat haters, instead?

Semmer

I agree.

I love cats and mine are always outside. If mine ever were killed there would be hell to pay.

Rainstorm Jenny

Ditto!

icyrainbow

How could someone even think of such a thing? I have two cats that live indoors and another that lives outside. If anyone ever, ever touched one of my cats I don't know what I would do. How cruel can someone be?

Sheebs

Here is an update on it:


Wisconsin is center stage for one big cat fight
Bob Von Sternberg, Star Tribune
April 12, 2005 CATS0412


LA CROSSE, WIS. -- The fur flew in Wisconsin on Monday night.

A proposal that would open the door to letting hunters legally shoot Wisconsin's 1.4 million-plus free-roaming cats was debated at simultaneous hearings in all of the state's 72 counties.

The hearings came more than a month after the proposal floated from a line item in the state's Conservation Congress into a nationwide cause célèbre, pitting cat lovers against bird-loving hunters.

Regardless of the outcome of Monday's hearings, it's a long way from becoming state policy, because declaring an open season on feral cats still would have to be endorsed by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and ratified by the state Legislature.

"It's awful, but it's not something that's going to go anywhere," said Crystal Van Vleet, owner of a La Crosse tanning salon who has become something of a local celebrity because of the three cats who roam her business, rubbing up against customers. "There's no way to tell if a cat's just a stray, so I don't know why that guy wants to shoot all of them."

"That guy" is Mark Smith, a La Crosse firefighter and hunter who came up with what at least one wag has called the "kitty-kitty bang-bang" solution after years of enduring feline predation at his bird feeders.

His idea was approved last year without fanfare at the La Crosse County branch of the Conservation Congress, an elected body that advises the DNR, which in turn placed it on the agenda of this spring's annual hearings.

Smith has been taken aback at the vehemence of the opposition to his idea, reporting that he has received several death threats at home and at work.

"Yeah, I keep getting them, but I'm done talking about this," he said Monday. "I've made my statement."

He grew up with a cat named Fluffy, and doesn't want an open season on all cats, and says cats with responsible owners wouldn't be in jeopardy.

"What is so terrible about putting a collar on a cat to identify it as yours?" he asked.

Smith said he planned to attend Monday's hearing in downtown La Crosse.

State officials were braced for massive turnouts at the hearings across the state and moved discussion of the cat-killing measure to the beginning of the evening to accommodate the expected turnout.

But in La Crosse, which has become the epicenter of the debate thanks to Smith, barely 100 people showed up for Monday night's hearing. And most of them were on Smith's side.

"For 55 of my 64 years, I was a hunter, but now I'm a birder," said Russ Paulson of La Crosse. "I shoot them with my camera now. Wherever a cat is, its nature is to be predatory. They kill not just for food, but for entertainment, and they're decimating wildlife populations."

One of the few opponents of the proposal was John Wilstermann, a designer of cat-logo T-shirts who drove down from his home in Hopkins wearing a shirt labeled "Cat Person."

"I'm trying to nip this in the bud, so it doesn't spread to other states," he said. "It's a ridiculous idea. There's got to be a better idea -- trap, neuter, release."

A University of Wisconsin ecology professor published research in 1996 that showed that free-roaming feral domestic cats killed millions of small mammals, song and game birds. Estimates range from a minimum of 47 million up to 139 million songbirds are killed each year in the state.

Research by state scientists in a 2003 study found an estimated 1.4 to 2 million free-ranging cats roaming rural Wisconsin resulting in cat densities of 30 to 60 felines per square mile.

In some rural areas, this cat density is higher than all other midsize predators, such as raccoons, foxes and skunks, combined.

Minnesota and South Dakota allow feral cats to be shot. In Minnesota, a feral cat is considered an "unprotected species," the same designation they would have in Wisconsin under Smith's proposal.

That places them in the same category as gophers, skunks and weasels, but they're only vulnerable in rural areas because shooting cats is illegal in cities and towns. The same restriction would apply in Wisconsin.

The opposition to the cat-killing proposal was spearheaded by the Wisconsin Cat Action Team, an ad hoc group that mobilized cat lovers to attend Monday's hearings, and a pet store in Madison that organized on the Internet at www.dontshootthecat.com.

The DNR and its Conservation Congress have tried to keep their distance from the cat fight that has roiled far beyond Wisconsin's borders.

"It is not the intention of the Conservation Congress to have a hunting season on cats," the organizations posted on their website last week.


Seriously, there would be dead cats everywhere. And super pissed-off owners. No good can come from this!!!!

-Kelly-

Shame, shame, shame

Leave the cats ALONE

Kimberly

I'm ashamed to be from WI after reading that. I talked to my Mom and the local news said that 3 cats had been found shot the other day. 2 of them were people's pets. That is the part that is horrid about this. What if your cat gets away or if you have an outdoor cat? *sigh* I hope this doesn't pass. But still I don't think a lot of people in WI would go out and shoot the cats. I just think it would send a bad signal. And make it harder for people who do lose their pets to people being cruel to do anything about it.

Quarterley

Some people are just so sick in the head.

Scooby_Doo

Somebody wants to shoot him

Milt Palacio

I don't think this will pass. Gov. Doyle won't sign it.

TheAngel

My cat and my grandparent's cat were both stray cats. Mine was found by some friends of the family in Nashville, Tennessee. Then I found my grandparent's cat in the field next to our church. I can't imagine that someone would do this. If we're going to shoot cats that simply are trying to survive by catching and eating birds, then perhaps we should shoot the homeless. I mean, it's survival of the fittest, the way the world was supposed to work. These cats don't have homes so they have to live some way.